Red Sox hire former reliever Andrew Bailey as pitching coach

BOSTON -- The Red Sox have once again turned to someone with previous ties to the organization to fill a key spot.

The club announced on Tuesday that Andrew Bailey, who pitched for the Red Sox from 2012-13, will be Boston's new pitching coach.

Manager Alex Cora, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, game planning coordinator Jason Varitek and bench coach Ramón Vázquez are other key members of the team’s brain trust who know what it is like to play for the Red Sox.

“I think it's just a tool in our tool belt of experiences to kind of lean on,” Bailey said. “I know what it's like to blow a save in Boston. I know what it's like to be a player who has success as well in periods of time. We won the World Series and we finished last place [in Boston]. I experienced both of those.

“I’ve kind of run the gamut in Boston as well in a really short period of time, but I think it's an amazing market. It's got an amazing fanbase. There's just an energy and an aura around Fenway Park and the fans and I love it. And I'm excited to be back on it back at it. But yeah, I think we can draw from those experiences, for sure.”

• World Series champion Breslow introduced as chief baseball officer

With Bob Melvin taking over as manager of the Giants following the team’s dismissal of Gabe Kapler, this offseason was a logical time for Bailey to contemplate other opportunities.

Bailey didn’t hide the fact that his longstanding relationship with Breslow, a man he was teammates with in Oakland and Boston, played a large role in his choice of Boston as his next destination.

“Life's too short to turn down opportunities like this,” Bailey said. “I think sitting in the bullpen with Craig over parts of five seasons together as teammates and talking about how he was going to be a GM and I was like, ‘Well, I’ll be a bullpen coach, pitching coach, manager, whatever you want me to do.’ … [I] think it's a pretty unique relationship.”

In fact, Bailey has long served as the director of development for the Strike 3 Foundation, founded by Breslow in 2008, which aims to heighten awareness, mobilize support and raise funding for childhood cancer research.

In Bailey, the Red Sox get one of the rising pitching coaches in the game. The 39-year-old served in that role for the Giants the past four seasons.

Over those four years, San Francisco ranked sixth in the Majors with a 3.80 ERA, while allowing the fewest home runs (525) and posting the third-highest strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.16).

One thing Cora preached over the past two seasons was the need to throw more strikes. Under Bailey’s watch, the Giants had the fewest walks in the Majors in 2023 and were the only team to have as many as four complete games.

“Look, strikes are everything,” Bailey said. “Stuff in the zone plays. Limiting walks, being aggressive and ahead in counts.”

Starting pitchers have had a way of taking their careers to the next level under Bailey’s tutelage.

Veteran righty Kevin Gausman had a career-best 2.81 ERA and finished sixth in the National League Cy Young Award voting under Bailey in 2021, before carrying that success over to the Blue Jays for the past two seasons.

Lefty Carlos Rodón also finished sixth in the NL Cy Young Award voting while working with Bailey in 2022.

Most recently was the emergence of Giants righty Logan Webb, who finished second in the race for NL Cy Young in 2023, when he led the Majors with 216 innings.

“I think if you take a look at, you know, some of the pitchers that I was fortunate enough to work with in San Francisco, and how they were able to adapt later in their careers, they were totally open minded and some of them did it on their own,” said Bailey. “We had a really good group. I'm not the best pitching coach in the world, I'd tell you that right now. I think it's a product of a lot of smart people around us working interdepartmentally with strength and conditioning, with medical, pitching assistant, throwing trainers, everybody. There's a litany of people that have impact on players, and it's how we can maximize the strengths of everybody and get the best out of the players, first and foremost.”

The top mission of the Red Sox in the coming years under Breslow is to improve their pitching results and infrastructure. In Bailey, Breslow has someone who should be a big help in that quest.

Bailey pitched in 265 games over eight Major League seasons, including 49 games with the Red Sox. Though Bailey was injured during Boston’s memorable run to the World Series championship in 2013, he has a ring for being part of that team.

With Bailey running the pitching staff, the Red Sox will try to get back in the mix for their first World Series title since 2018.